Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

If you do an original film and you want to cut a scene out you do it. But when you do a shot by shot remake you don't have that option and every scene has to work again.

If I tell the audience what they should think, then I am robbing them of their own imagination and their own capacity of deciding what's important to them.

Awards are important for all directors because they improve your working conditions. You're only as good as your last film, so if you get prizes or large audiences, then you get more money for your next film.

I'm interested in seeing films that confront me with new things, with films that make me question myself, with films that help me to reflect on subjects that I hadn't thought about before, films that help me progress and advance.

It’s harder to write a story with just two people in a room than with 50 characters.

Every form of anti-Semitism, every form of xenophobia plays on the fear of the unknown, and unfortunately there are all too many politicians who know how to manipulate that. The dumber people are, the more they feel the need for a broad set of shoulders they can lay their head against.